Tool

Wed 27th Oct, 2010 in Features

Tool is set to bring their spectacular live show (lasers and all) back to the Big Day Out for their first Australian visit in four years.

As well as helping Australia’s biggest festival celebrate its 18th birthday, the Californian prog-rockers will play a pair of sideshows – but just what can fans expect from the often cryptic and mysterious prog-rockers?

The band is currently recording their fifth studio album, the follow up to 2006’s 10,000 Days , but when FasterLouder spoke to Big Day Out promoter Viv Lees last month even he couldn’t tell us what Tool has in store for their 2011 tour, admitting that “they haven’t even told me if they’re playing any new material or not, so I can’t speculate on that at the moment.”

FasterLouder tracked down Tool’s drummer Danny Carey to answer the big questions about the tour and new record – and learn why Tool won’t be doing a “techno dance mix” anytime soon.

In the last four or so years your bandmates have been very busy outside of the band – Adam with his art exhibitions, Maynard with Puscifer, A Perfect Circle and his wine – what’s been happening with you?
I’ve been playing a lot with a band called Volto! with some friends of mine. It‘s kind of more of a jazz/fusion rock thing. We usually play once a month here in Los Angeles and we’ve actually finally just got all the material to record a record. So I’m just in the infantile stages of that and then still doing a few little projects and recordings and things with friends and working on other things for maybe a solo record.

So who’s involved in Volto!?
The guitar player is John Ziegler [from Pygmy Love Circus], he’s kind of like a session guy – a consummate musician. Kirk Covington plays drums along with me and sings and also plays keyboards. His most famous band was Tribal Tech and they were kind of one of the bigger jazz fusion bands of the 90s. Lance Morrison is the bass player and he plays with Don Heneley most of the time.

What can we expect from this Tool show that differs from the band’s previous Big Day Out appearance in 2007?
Definitely different lighting features, props and visual delights I guess! Not a lot of new music but we’ll try to mix it up as much as we can, maybe pull out a few oldies that people may not have heard in quite a while. Maybe give a few hints of some things that we’ve been working on in between songs. Who knows. Maybe by then we may even have a couple of new songs to play. We’re working on them daily so it kind of depends on how far along we get.

There definitely will be big visual surprises. It won’t be what you saw last time. There’ll be some of the similar elements in certain songs that we’re happy with how they’ve developed visually.

How much influence does the band have over the visuals, specifically the videos which Adam Jones creates but also the lighting and props?
We kind of all pitch in really. Adam has the Director role because you need to have somebody with some focus but our team is huge. Our lighting guy has been with us for 15 years now and our video guy has been with us for 10 years. Our team is just really cohesive and a lot of what you see comes from those guys and the band itself. They’ve been doing it long enough that we can give them free reign. They go out and research and find elements to add to our video and crazy things to add into the lighting. It’s great to have that trust of people that have been around that long with us where we can let them fly on their own.

Tool’s album artwork has been quite intricate and interesting or unconventional…
Yeah, you can’t really download 3D images or the little glasses! So we’ll have to find alternatives and come up with some creative packaging or some creative ways to reinforce our concept of the record as we see it.

You’ve also had quite a history of pushing the musical and artistic envelope, so to speak, how do you think it will be pushed on this album? Is there a specific direction that’s being intentionally taken?
Just kind of the way we have in the past, I suppose. I feel like we’ve become better craftsmen at what we do – our songwriting and use of textures and developing songs better and making them more cohesive. Maybe having the whole album come off with a more cohesive vibe. That’s one of my goals with this album. I’d like to have it feel almost like one single piece of music from beginning to end. Instead of just a collection of songs.

So you won’t be breaking out any disco beats to drastically change things up?
[laughs] I don’t think you’ll have to worry too much about that. We won’t be doing the techno dance mix anytime soon.

So what keeps you inspired in the Tool realm?
For me, it’s different artists and books and just playing with other people. It’s really done a lot for me, doing different sessions. Hanging out and communicating musically with other people gives you a fresh insight of how to relate to the other people in my band. I think that’s helped more than anything in the last year or so.